"The Big Three contractors Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman - combined to split nearly $50 billion in Pentagon contracts in fiscal year 2004, or nearly one out of every four dollars the Pentagon handed out for everything from rifles to rockets. By comparison, the top three contractors in the late 1970s accounted for roughly 13 percent of Pentagon contracts, roughly half the share of the current Big Three.
A new breed of contractors - private military firms like Halliburton, Dyncorp, Blackwater and CACI - has emerged with a vengeance to supply everything from meals to base and vehicle maintenance, from security services to training in overseas combat zones. Brookings Institution expert Peter W. Singer notes that reliance on these firms has mushroomed in the last decade. In the 1990/1991 Iraq war, one in 100 personnel in theater worked for a private firm, while in the current Iraq war that figure is one in 10."
It seems to me that companies who make profits from a war should shoulder more of the burden. We need to remove incentives to go to war for making money.
War should be fought for survival (or for the joy of battle), not for $$$.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
…This amounts to taxing the richest in society.
Something I thought you were vehemently against.
I don’t know who you are any more…[/quote]
I think if we taxed the hell out of people who profit from war, that provides a disincentive. The tax code is used for everything else; why not this? Fight one evil with another evil.
I own stock in those companies, btw. I know that the world is an evil brutal place and is unlikely to change anytime soon. I also know that taxing war profits will never happen.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I think if we taxed the hell out of people who profit from war, that provides a disincentive. The tax code is used for everything else; why not this? Fight one evil with another evil.
[/quote]
Would it provide a disincentive to go to war, or only a disincentive to produce the best product?
HH… you do know you’re leading this conversation down the path of nationalization? That’d be the only way to ensure no private organization benefits from war. But it would also cripple our defenses and our economy to a point.
So no, a war tax is not a good idea. How about a fine for private soldier friendly fire? Or actually enforcing our laws on private and national soldiers a like?